This year I'll be doing something a bit different: I'll be donating to my grandson's school's Arts&Letters Sale. I fiddle with beads and found objects, making small three-dimensional wall sculptures out of branches and twigs, feathers and ribbon, beads, washers, wire, and old jewelry. I enjoy it- giving a new life to something discarded- and I like keeping my hands busy, my mind busy. I'm planning to create an ArtCard piece like the ones I've been making while I'm studying ABM: beautiful wood, found; beads from my stash, some over a hundred years old. Ribbon, chain, feathers, turned into landscapes and waterfalls, small, complete, infinite. Won't that be fun? I've sent for my ArtCard- can't wait for it to come in the mail!

Day 24, segment 3, Anat Baniel Method Training

I'm just going to use this post as a place to showcase the wonderful people I'm in training with, or, rather, their websites/blogs.

Of course, Anat: This is Anat@ TEDxBerkeley


Try the short exercise in the video, then check back from time to time and see what's new.

Chelsea: Parent of a child with CP: Cerebral Palsy Mentor
Dan Oullette, Certified Massage Therapist, Saskatoon, Alberta, Canada & parent of a child with CP

I'll be adding as I get permission from people to link them here.

If you're in the SF Bay Area tomorrow and looking for an evening thing to do, there's a Free Experiential Presentation particularly directed at people with neck and back problems, including headaches and trouble walking, at 6pm at the ABM Center 4330 Redwood Drive, San Rafael, CA. This Saturday, Sept 18, 2011

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IndieGoGo

A couple years ago, I donated money to a small film project. The project was The Bully Project, and the donation site was IndieGoGo. Since then I've watched both grow. Today The Bully Project is a film, and IndieGoGo is thriving.

I'm now working on my own pitch. I'm going to need sponsors to pull off this new education in Anat Baniel Method. I'm already a member of a number of survey panels, including VocalPoint; I use coupons; I recycle cans and bottles, wear my clothes forever, cook from scratch. But this is the 4th year in a row with no raise in wages, but with a raise in healthcare premiums [I pay $133 a week now, just for myself], car insurance, gas and food, I'm going to have to get more creative and be more vulnerable than ever.

So. The next few posts will be working out exactly how I practice Nursing (my brand, if you will); why I feel, think, know ABM is a good fit with Nursing; and what I will do with ABM (besides open my own practice- I look forward to having clients of my own).

I hope some of you will follow me on my journey. It's a fun one.

Move into Life

So I'm in a hotel room in San Rafael, California. Not posh- I can hear the freeway all night, and the air conditioner from next door- but that doesn't distract me from my purpose here.

I've begun the Anat Baniel Method Professional Training, to eventually become a practitioner with special needs children.

The what?

Anat Baniel Method Professional Training. 26 months, 25k. People from all over the world in our class- Sweden, Denmark, Saskatchewan, Thailand. Some have special needs children, some [like me] work with them, some were special needs children who got help along the way. Some of us are 'special needs adults'- post-stroke, post-head injury. Some of us are nurses or teachers or Pilates instructors looking to broaden and deepen our practice.

I'm looking for work I can continue into my 80s in a healthy way. I've been an RN for 31 years, mostly working in Neonatal and Pediatric ICU alternated with long-term home-care for special needs children. I've seen it from both ends and felt there was something missing in the middle.

This is it. The missing piece.

My long term goal is to introduce this work to the Neonatal and Pediatric ICUs in the San Francisco Bay Area as part of what's available to patients there, or as part of their follow-up rehabilitation. There's no doubt in my mind that this would have helped nearly every child I took care of over 30 years. It certainly is helping the lad I take care of now.

And it's definitely good for me! I'm more limber, lighter, better co-ordinated, and happier. Can't lose!

If you're here because I've entered a contest on your blog, welcome. I'm entering a lot of contests these days, looking for simple and creative ways to either directly finance my tuition [prepaid Visa cards, for instance] or indirectly finance it by winning gift cards to Target or Amazon, or winning clothes/food/goodies to save me purchasing them.

Occasionally I'll review things here. Mostly I'll talk about the course. Sometimes [when I win!] I'll celebrate the blogger I won from. And I hope to pique your interest in this work.